Senior figures in Saddam Hussein's ousted government, including two former interior ministers, testified for the defense when the trial for crimes against humanity resumed in Baghdad on Monday.Saddam and his seven co-defendants are accused of a crackdown that led to the execution of 148 Shi'ite men and teenagers in the town of Dujail after a failed assassination bid against him there in 1982. If convicted, they face possible death by hanging. Eight witnesses took the stand on Monday, testifying for Saddam, his half-brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bander. Defense witnesses, initially for some of the lesser-known defendants, started taking the stand when the trial resumed on May 15 after a three-week recess following the completion of the prosecution case. The trial began in October. ... http://abcnews.go.com

More than a half-century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war's chaotic early days has come to light a letter from the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines. The letter dated the day of the Army's mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri in 1950 is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all U.S. forces in Korea, and the first evidence that that policy was known to upper ranks of the U.S. government. "If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot," wrote Ambassador John J. Muccio, in his message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk. The letter reported on decisions made at a high-level meeting in South Korea on July 25, 1950, the night before the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2016923

At least 40 people have been killed in a series of bomb attacks in and around the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Eleven people died in an explosion near a bus north-east of Baghdad, police said, while in the city itself, about 28 died in five separate bombings. Iraqi insurgents have carried out almost daily attacks for months, aimed at civilians and security forces. The bus attack appeared to target workers at a base of the Iranian opposition movement Mujahideen e-Khalq. It happened just after dawn near Khalis, 80km (50 miles) north of Baghdad in Diyala province. The province, a mixed Sunni-Shia area which includes the city of Baquba, has been one of the bloodiest regions of Iraq during the insurgency, which began in the months after the 2003 US-led invasion. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5026998.stm

At least five people have drowned across Georgia over the Memorial Day weekend, authorities said. The latest victim was a man who drowned in the Ogeechee River on Sunday in Bryan County in southeast Georgia.The 20-year-old man, who was not immediately identified, was swimming with friends when a current pulled him under in waters 15 feet deep, county Coroner Daniel Page said.Also, authorities on Sunday identified a man who drowned at Turner Lake in Newton County a day earlier. Jesse Thornton, 43, of Conyers was at the family reunion of a friend when he drowned Saturday afternoon.Friday saw the drowning deaths of two teenage brothers from Griffin and a 45-year-old Tennessee woman....http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197379,00.html

Millions of dollars of World Bank funds - set to be paid to projects in Cambodia - have been suspended after corruption was found at the schemes. The Cambodian government, which doles out the payments, froze the money after the bank uncovered a misuse of funds and irregularities in seven projects. Cash for three ongoing infrastructure and water sanitation schemes, worth more than $64m, has been stopped. Another four projects under suspicion, had already been completed. In a letter to colleagues, Cambodia's finance minister Keat Chhon said the World Bank had informed him of "irregularities" in the projects and that money may have to be paid back. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5027168.stm

A Canadian newspaper has apologized for publishing an erroneous story last week that said the Iranian parliament had passed a law requiring Jews and Christians to wear badges identifying them as religious minorities in public. The story published in the National Post last Friday has stirred up an international row, and the Iranian government on Wednesday summoned Canada's ambassador to the foreign ministry in Tehran. Iran's conservative parliament last week began debating a draft law that would discourage women from wearing Western clothing and encourage citizens to wear Islamic-style garments. The measure provoked outrage outside Iran after the National Post, a conservative national daily, reported that the bill included provisions requiring Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims to wear a patch of colored cloth on the front of their garments — in a chilling throwback to Nazi Germany, when Jews were forced to wear the yellow star of David. ...http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/25/world/main1655657.shtml?source=RSS&attr=World_1655657